IN describing the unfortunate termination of my efforts to winter our stock, I have advanced a little beyond the regular order of events. There was much other work to be done in the garden, even without referring to the masses of bedding plants and the quantities of new seeds that I had purchased. As the third season opened, a renewed energy took possession of me, and I went at digging and planting like a giant refreshed. There was no longer a sense of desolation around my place. The florists and nurserymen, under my careful instruction, had set out trees, and planted flowers, and got hedges in order, until Nature in my five acres was bursting from a smile into a grin. It is true that the cows of the neighborhood, which were invariably allowed to roam whithersoever they listed, had fed rather profusely on the evergreens, breaking down the tops and nipping off the ends of the branches; that here and there the hedges had died out, and left yawning gaps; but, onthe whole, there was a remarkable change. It was at this point that I bethought me of an omission from my flower garden which was as surprising as it was inexcusable; hitherto I had neglected doing justice to the gourd tribe.
I am great on gourds; they are my specialty. I will undertake to grow them against the world, and will meet Jonah in a fair field, and no miracles, any time; in fact, I am a perfect Jonah on gourds. In early youth, when my gardening was confined to a city yard, my gourds were the first, and fattest, and yellowest to be seen; and, from that remote period to the time of which I speak, I had always felt an affection for the beautiful fruit, and wondered why Nature did not put more in it. Of course there must be gourds in my garden, in spite of their being a useless production and very hollow—Weeville made a joke about their beating other fruit all hollow—and, except to make fragile water-dippers (which, by the way, no one ever makes of them), quite worthless; so I not only planted the seeds in the open garden, but forced some in the hot-beds.
My special favorites were three seeds of an almost unknown variety, called Hercules’ Club, upon the past history and future prospects of which I could get little information. I planted these little germs ofpromise in a prominent place in the front beds, and watched with tender care till they came up. A pale, delicate, juicy little spear, guarded by its two seed-lobes, pushed its way above ground, where it seemed ill suited to battle with the breeze and brave the sun, that threatened to break or consume it. My solicitude became greater when the feeble stem put forth a feebler leaf, not larger than one’s finger-nail, and so thin that the tracing of the veins was like gossamer. My horror, therefore, can be imagined when I found, on the ensuing morning, that a squash-bug had fallen upon my tender nursling and eaten the leaf all up.
I killed that bug. He endeavored to slip into the earth, but I slew him without remorse. He was not an ugly bug in outward appearance; entomologists might even have called him handsome; his colors were a mixture of gilt and black, but his beauty was no protection. The next day another delicate leaf rewarded my protection, but the following morning another squash-bug devoured it; he met the fate of his predecessor; but, when a third leaf was disposed of in the same way, the result began to be doubtful; the question was arising, which would give out first, the squash-bugs or the leaves? Having heard that wood-ashes was good to drive away bugs, I was aboutapplying a dose, when Patrick assured me that they would “scorch such a little mite of a thing all up;” and, as I had already discovered that no reliance could be placed on tobacco, I was nearly at what ladies call their “wits’ end”—whichever end that may be, when Weeville again came to the rescue.
“Squash-bugs!” he said; “there is no need of ever being troubled by them. Nature always has a remedy for all Nature’s ills, if we only look for it. Onions, my boy, are the thing. Does a squash-bug ever eat an onion? No, sir. Then make him eat it, and see how it agrees with him. I used to be bothered with them among my cucumber-vines till I put a few onions in each hill. No more bugs now. I never lose a leaf—not a single leaf. When you plant gourds next time, put in a few onion-seeds at the same time, and you will have no trouble. The smell does it.”
This was very fine for the future, but I wanted to save my Hercules’ Club for the present; so I thought to myself that if onions would answer when grown in the vicinity, why would they not answer if removed to the place, and kept renewed from time to time? There was no scarcity of onions, and if we did not use them in this way, it was doubtful whether they would be used at all, so I immediately gathereda quantity, and built a breastwork of bulbs and stalks round my little pets. At this time the sprouts were bare, having been stripped by our remorseless enemies; but next morning still another leaf put forward its claim to recognition—somewhat weaker, perhaps, than the earlier ones, but still a leaf. By sundown it was fully developed, and my anxiety can be imagined to learn its fate next day. I was up and dressed by sunrise, and, to my great delight, found the leaf there and no squash-bug.
The victory was won. The fatalchevaux-de-frisewas renewed daily, and proved itself an effectual barrier to the foe. One leaf followed another; they increased in size; the stalk mounted a few inches, and was secured to a stake. This appeared to be the turning-point of the plant’s existence. It suddenly began to grow, and, having exhibited its feebleness in infancy, now commenced to show its strength. In one night it grew a foot, and up it rushed, in a few days, to the top of the stake. There were three plants in all, not far apart, and they had soon climbed as high as they could on their supports. Huge broad leaves, as large as a straw hat, made their appearance. Fresh stakes had to be inserted, and then, when these were covered, which happened in a few days, still larger ones were substituted. My skill hadbeen tested in inducing the wonderful plant to grow, and I was not to be outdone now. Hoops were arranged from post to post like a single section of an arbor; cross-pieces were added, and still the plant outran them. I was becoming weak, and, having beaten Jonah, was trying a match with Jack of the famous “Beanstalk,” with heavy odds in my own opinion that I should win. It was still early summer, and where my gourds would end ere the season was over seemed doubtful.
Unfortunately, at this stage of the contest there came up a storm of wind and rain. This was a contingency that had not entered my mind. My supports were frail, my lashings insecure; in an instant the whole structure was leveled to the ground. Without waiting to tear my garments, as I should have done if I had been Jonah, I rushed bareheaded into the storm, fearing that an hour’s delay would give the gourd a start never to be overcome, and again raised my frame-work and secured it more firmly. Still the gourd grew. I led strings in all directions, but, not satisfied with these, it spread over the ground, covered my small plants, crawled up the neighboring bushes and trees, crept out into the paths, and threatened to occupy the entire garden. I was still bravely contending against the inevitable, when destructionin the shape of another storm came upon me in the night, and the following morning found my labors again stretched upon the ground.
This proved too much for me, and, giving in at once, I called Patrick to do what he could under the circumstances. He straightway sunk two stout posts and braced them with guys in every direction, and then we let the Clubs—of which these certainly seemed to be the kings—follow their own fancy and grow till they should be tired. Being in a conspicuous part of the garden—in fact, pretty thoroughly hiding the smaller flowers—our friends had been deeply interested, and, never having seen the vine before, wondered what kind of fruit it bore. It had produced abundance of white flowers, in shape somewhat like the yellow blossoms of the squash, but they fell off, “leaving not a wrack behind,” nor any fruit. I could not find that Jonah’s gourd, or the beanstalk of my friend Jack, had produced fruit or left seed, and began to think that mine was an exceptional production of a similar character, that could only be raised by those who were great on gourds, or, as the Vulgate hath it, “some pumpkins.” If Jack’s stalk had produced beans, we should have known those beans; if Jonah’s gourd had borne seed, we should have found them at the seed-stores to this day.
My anxiety was greatly relieved, therefore, when at last something that was evidently intended for fruit made its appearance. It was almost of the size and shape of a small lead-pencil, and closely resembled a long green worm. This remarkable fruit—only odder, if any thing, than the parent that bore it—after the same hesitancy and dilatoriness, commenced to grow in the same mad way. It was soon as thick as your finger, then as your wrist, then as your arm, and considerably longer than the latter; and, ere it gave up, became as large round and longer than a small man’s leg. Hercules, even, would have been bothered to manage such a club.
It bore seeds, but I destroyed them. My squashes were ahead of all in Flushing. My pumpkins ran for hundreds of feet, climbed the bean-poles, and bore a large fruit on top, one specimen being huge enough to have furnished Peter Piper’s wife with a comfortable apartment. My ordinary round gourds attained the size of a child’s head; and if I produced such a result as I have described from my first year’s attempt with the Hercules’ Club, I was not prepared to take the consequences of a second or third effort.
It was better to allow such a plant to disappear; the discovery of new species of flowers and vegetables is creditable so long as they are either handsomeor useful, but to get the reputation of being the man who originated a wonderful gourd, to go down to posterity celebrated for this alone, to be spoken of in horticultural works as the gourd-man, was too terrible a fate. Moreover, there was some danger in renewing such an experiment; on the second trial the wonderful plant might have spread all over the neighborhood, climbed upon crops, strangled trees, surmounted houses, and invaded the village in such a way as to make me liable for damages for trespass. There are some things which a man does too well to do often; growing gourds was evidently one of those with me, and I determined never to be led into such an undertaking again.
To counterbalance this wonderful success, it is necessary to record a remarkable failure. “Variety is the spice of life.” It is this variety which gives agricultural pursuits their principal zest; no two attempts in planting bring about the same results. There may be the same circumstances of time, place, and weather, but the conclusion will be altogether dissimilar. All honest farmers must confess—and farmers are, like lawyers, without exception, upright and truthful—that the return from no two years has been alike. One year the potatoes fail, another leaves us without corn, a third is too much for thewheat; then the fruit rots, or the turnips will not grow, or the sweet potatoes run entirely to vine, or the oats to straw. Something never comes out right, or does what was expected of it, and often behaves in a shabby manner. Of coarse, my horticulture could be no exception, but the eccentricities of Flushing soil are rather extravagant, although the editor of theAgriculturistlives in the neighborhood, and does all he can to keep it in order. I have mentioned some peculiarities of my hot-house experience. I will give certain facts, quite as strange, relative to out-of-door gardening.
There were some hardy perennials which I had raised with great care, and among them a fine specimen of crimson flax, or what I had satisfied myself was crimson flax. My seeds had fallen into a little confusion in consequence of the names getting washed off the labels by the rains; but, as the plant bore a crimson flower, and did not resemble any thing else in particular, I had made up my mind it was crimson flax; if it were not, there must have been a defect in Thorburn’s seeds, which is not to be presumed, for nothing else of that description came up. Perennials are not generally satisfactory during their first season; they make a poor growth of it, showing a feebleness that is extremely painful to afond and devoted gardener. They are not easily distinguished from weeds at best, and, as they grow far slower than the latter, are often lost entirely among them. For this reason I was especially proud of my crimson flax. It grew thriftily, spread into a good-sized bush, and covered itself with delicate flowers.
This had occurred during the previous season, and when fall came I was careful to mark the spot where it was with several large stakes, in order to warn Patrick against digging it up. Patrick was rather an enthusiast with a spade, and somewhat zealous in weeding; he was fond of digging up the garden to “meliorate” it, as he expressed the idea, and to prepare it for spring planting; and if he had not the flowers very distinctly and plainly marked, he would, in the excitement of the operation, dig them up ruthlessly. So also, in weeding, he had to be warned and watched, for more than once was my blood frozen with horror at beholding Patrick weeding up a valuable plant, and twice he weeded all the young sprouts off a flowering shrub so effectually that the shrub never recovered from the shock. With this fear before my eyes, and a question about the perfect reliability of my own memory, I marked the spot where my crimson flax was located with great care, surroundingit on all sides with stakes plainly lettered. Thus fortified, I waited confidently till the winter should be over, having put my own weaknesses and Patrick’s at defiance.
True to my confident expectations, with the first few warm suns my crimson flax reappeared amid its palisade of stakes. It grew far more strongly than before, spreading rapidly into a large bush, and requiring the assistance of supports and strings to keep it in shape. There was an odd singularity about it, however, which struck me as remarkable. The leaf seemed different from what it had been before—it was longer and narrower; but this probably was one of those changes which perennials undergo ere they get firmly established, and, among the many curious things I had experienced, did not surprise me particularly. The plant was on the exact place where it had been the year previous; it was growing luxuriantly, and bid fair to be a magnificent ornament to the garden, for it had a prominent situation. I did not boast of it, however. Boasting is not natural to me. I did not even call Weeville’s attention to it. He had disappointed me so often that I resolved he should be disappointed himself. I was determined to say nothing until it should be covered with its crimson gems.
It grew remarkably. If it had done well the previous year, it bid fair to surpass itself this season. As its time for flowering approached I became quite nervous and excited. Slowly the buds formed, being almost innumerable, and covering each spray; they filled and distended, and finally burst. But what was my astonishment when I discovered that they had changed their color. Instead of the rich crimson flowers that were expected, I found the bush one morning covered with strange-looking blossoms of a dull yellow. The most remarkable transformation ever known had taken place—crimson flax had lost its natural hue under careful cultivation, and assumed the appearance of a cross between an orange blossom and a dandelion; if any thing, it was rather more like the dandelion. It was no longer crimson—had, in fact, no shade of crimson. It was a pure yellow, and not altogether a handsome one. To describe the disgust that this unexpected change wrought in my usually placid temper is impossible. I began to hate that plant. The more it blossomed the more furious I felt, until finally, when it had covered itself with these wretched straw-colored abortions, my feelings overcame me, and I pulled it up by the roots.
This burst of passion has caused me much regret.By a moment’s indulgence of anger I destroyed the chance of raising a new species of plant, a changeable crimson flax—crimson one year and yellow the next. Weeville, when subsequently informed of my indiscretion, attempted to console me by endeavoring to make out that it was a weed which had smothered the original flower. He even doubted whether there ever had been any crimson flax in my garden, and pretended dissatisfaction with my description of that plant. He said he was not aware that crimson flax was a perennial, and thought that the designation in the catalogue was an error, ridiculous as such a supposition was to my mind. He undertook to show me numerous weeds by the road-side—for weeds are quite abundant in Flushing—which bore yellow blossoms, and which he felt confident were the same as the one I had raised. They did resemble it in many points; but, as I had marked my plant carefully, had seen it blossom the year previous, and knew whereof I spoke, I utterly disdained his explanation. I must still feel that the loss of my new flax was serious, and must regret the outburst that led to it. Even a flower convertible into a weed, or changing biennially from one to the other, would be rare and curious.
Moreover, although we did raise several gardenweeds, this was like none of them. They were most deceptive things, and imitated the appearance of plants wonderfully. One grew quite tall, and seemed to be on the point of flowering all the while, but never did so. Another spread into quite a large tuft, something between a daisy and a violet, and imposed upon Patrick, even, so thoroughly that he never dug it up in a single instance, notwithstanding his readiness to extirpate whatever was of doubtful authenticity. It spread rapidly, until it was quite a labor to pull it up. Another of these troublesome members of the vegetable kingdom attained almost the dimensions of a shrub, and had a thick, solid stalk, and actually flowered; but the blossoms were the minutest things possible, and bore a ludicrous disproportion with the size of the bush; while the snap-dragon obtained a hold in the beds which it is probable I never shall eradicate, by an error of appreciation continued through a few months. In fact, the weeds performed such strange antics, and behaved in so unexpected a way, that the question arose in my mind as to what was a weed. The author of “Ten Acres Enough” says that it is a flower out of place. The latter half of his explanation may be well enough; but as to its being a flower, most of those that came up in my garden had no flowerswhatever. Without entering too far upon a religious disquisition, it may do merely to suggest that it struck me that weeds were original sin, springing up to trouble us every where, and calling for that sweat of the brow which is ordained as the lot of the human kind for the first great crime of Mother Eve.
The nature of weeds is exceedingly perverse. They seem to have been sent to torment man, sprouting up continually without apparently ever becoming exhausted, causing an immense deal of unnecessary annoyance. As an evidence of their innate perversity, it is only necessary to refer to the manner in which they behaved toward myportulaca splendens. This showy plant had been thriving admirably, and as its seeds, when allowed to sow themselves, naturally reappear in augmented splendor the following year, I had founded great expectations upon the anticipated result. It is true that the portulaca did sow itself, and did come up finely the present spring; but, unfortunately, weeds come up without any sowing. They originate or “come of themselves,” as my brother farmers lucidly express it, and they appeared with the portulaca, and grew twice as rapidly.
The end of it was, that, although the flower was there, and even matured, it was hidden so effectuallythat there was no way of getting a sight at a blossom except by pulling up a yard square of weeds. My conclusion from this—and valuable it is to the cause of agriculture—was that our scientific men had not paid sufficient attention to weeds; that they had taught us how to make things grow, but had not told us how to prevent their growing; that an anti-fertilizer was more important than a fertilizer. There is twice as much labor expended in rooting weeds out as in putting vegetables in. We have our phosphates and superphosphates, our guano, marl, bone-dust, lime, and a dozen other species of manures, but not a single invention to prevent undesirable growth. The present necessity is a drug or acid, or some sort of medicament, that will kill all the weeds and the germs of weeds in the ground, but which will soon lose its power, so that the ground will perform its proper functions when seed is planted. Until this discovery is made, farming will be laborious, and I hope our learned men will devote their attention to it promptly. I shall only claim the honor of originating the idea, and leave the entire profits to the inventor.
IHAVE already mentioned the honesty of the people in Flushing. Nothing is more pleasant and satisfactory than to deal with persons on whom one can rely; to feel that one gets precisely what is agreed upon—can trust entirely to the word of the seller. To be sure, they were now and then a little too confiding. They had a way of supplying any person in the village with whatever he wanted, and charging it to me. If I objected, they answered conclusively that he had given my name, and that they were not accustomed, in the country, to doubt every man’s word who applied to them for a keg of nails or a dozen boards; and they explained that confidence was the foundation of business. Rather than disturb this creditable, almost too creditable state of affairs, I submitted, and paid for a good many articles that went to other people. I made a short attempt to enforce a rule that any applicant who gavemy name must have a written order, and I even opened a pass-book with the leading store-keeper; but these innovations met with so much opposition, and the leading store-keeper had always so much to add to what appeared in the pass-book, that I gave up the effort, and accepted country ways of dealing.
Even the farmers were affected by this simplicity of views; they had peculiar and somewhat unwise opinions, but they held to them religiously. They believed in New York as the Moslem believes in Mecca; they considered that they must make all their sales there, and that weekly pilgrimages thither were a necessity of their success in life. No inducement would persuade them to sell any of their produce on the road, or short of that sacred destination. It was vain to apply to them for a load of hay, or a dozen bags of oats; they would cart these six miles over heavy roads rather than sell them within a few rods of their doors. This was inconvenient, but a sure guaranty for their honesty; none but very honest people could be so simple, and their faith in the metropolis of the nation was actually touching.
“Sure, yer honor,” said Patrick to me one morning, “and the new Rockaway is gone intirely.”
“Why, Patrick, you surprise me; I only bought it last spring.” I did not say that I had obtained itsecond-hand, as it is well not to forget appearances, and human nature is somehow or other ashamed of buying any thing second-hand. The fact was that Dandy Jim had pretty much used up my first wagon; he had run away with it so often, had dragged it over so many fences, and smashed it so frequently and so effectually, that, when he was sold and the new family horse was purchased, a new wagon had to be bought for him. I said nothing to Patrick about its being second-hand, and he said nothing to me; we neither of us pretended to be aware of a fact which both of us knew perfectly well. True to his instinctive Irish delicacy, not a word was breathed against the honor of the house to which his fortunes were attached. So he replied,
“Be gorra! and it was a beautiful wagon intirely when yer honor brought it home; you may well say that.”
“What is the trouble, then, now?”
“Sorrow a one o’ me knows, but they tell its going fast, and I thought it was me duty to spake about it before any accident happened, which would be a pity, indade, indade.”
“Is there any thing wrong with the axle-trees?” I inquired, anxiously, worried at the implied risk.
“Axle-trees! whirra, and they’re as strong andsound as the day they were put in; divil a word can be said against the axle-trees.”
“Well, then, is it the springs?”
“The springs! Now did yer honor ever see a purtier pair of springs in yer life?”
“Perhaps it’s the wheels?”
“The wheels! divil a bit is there any thing the matter with the wheels; better running wheels, when they’re well grased, were never put in a wagon at all, at all.”
“Then, Patrick,” I cried in despair, “what on earth is the matter?”
“And didn’t I say it was wake all over, it was; and if it comes down when yer honor’s out driving, you mustn’t blame me. Yer honor knows best, but I shouldn’t like to be in it if it did break down; but perhaps there’d be no harm done—you may be going slow, like, and the horse may stop.”
“Patrick,” I responded, still more appalled at this picture, and not at all confident of so fortunate a result, my experience having been rather the reverse—“Patrick, it will never do to run any risk. What shall I do about it?”
“Yer honor does not seem to care for it, but, as I tould yer honor before, there’s a beautiful new coach down at the carriage-maker’s. If you saw it once,you would be much plased; it’s lovely intirely. If you would only get that, that would be the doin’ ov it.”
This discussion was not altogether an unusual thing between us. My Rockaway had been growing weaker and weaker for some time past, and, as its weakness became more striking, the “beautiful new coach” loomed up more distinctly. At first the spring would want strengthening, then the axles would need examining, next the tires would require resetting, and so on, until an application to the wheelwright became an event of weekly recurrence. On each repetition, the attractions of the “beautiful new coach” would come under discussion, and be dilated upon, although, as I had little faith in country work, and entire confidence in my Rockaway, I turned a deaf ear to all such suggestions.
However, matters had been becoming more serious lately. The wagon had certainly acquired a wobbly motion, which was neither agreeable nor reassuring. The springs or wheels, or both, appeared to have lost their strength; the latter did not track quite true, and, in turning a corner or crossing a gutter, there was evidence of a defect somewhere. No special difficulty had made itself apparent, but there was a general giving out—a sort of grogginess all over.The whole concern “yawed about” and “slewed round,” as the nautical gentlemen express it, after an unpleasant and threatening fashion. It was apparent that something must be done, and the carriage-maker, who also had the “beautiful new coach” for sale, declared that repairing would do no more good; so to Patrick’s last remark I responded with resignation,
“I suppose I shall have to get a new wagon of some sort. What does the man ask for the one you speak of?”
“Only three hundred and fifty dollars, with pole and shafts. Mr. Jones paid him four hundred for one just like it last week, but he says he wants yer honor to give him a chance. There’s nothing but the best of stuff gone into it. He puts on new patent clips; and the painting is the loveliest blue and red that iver was seen.”
“Well, Patrick, you may drive me down, and I will look at it.”
“Thank yer honor; and shall I hitch up right away?”
“Yes; the sooner it’s over the better.”
“Thrue for you, and so it is; for a break-down would be a pity, with the doctors charging so high. But ye’ll be safe enough in the new coach.”
We found the wheelwright at his shop, and ready to expatiate on the many good points of his vehicles and the excellence of his work; the advantages he had over city builders, and the danger there was in riding in a broken-down affair which was made of such wretched stuff as mine, that he only wondered had held together as long as it had. The proposed carriage was quite gorgeous and very fine with paint and upholstery. I thought it rather heavy for one horse, but Patrick, who had taken much interest in the discussion, immediately, on my making the suggestion, seized the shafts, and ran it up and down as if it were as light as a feather. So there was nothing for it but to say that I would take the “beautiful new coach;” and, stepping to one side with the maker, I said, “I am informed that the price is three hundred and fifty dollars.”
“Oh,” he replied, “that is without the pole; with the pole it is three hundred and seventy-five. Mr. Jones paid me—”
“Never mind about Mr. Jones. I understood the price was three hundred and fifty dollars with pole and shafts; but, as I do not want the former, I will do without that.”
“But they both go together,” replied the man. “Now I’ll tell you what,” he added, dropping hisvoice to a confidential whisper, “you have been a good customer of mine, and I want to please you; so let’s say three hundred and sixty-five, and that will be almost throwing the pole in. It costs a good twenty-five dollars to build one.”
I never liked haggling over trifles, so I consented and paid down the money. I did not send for the new carriage immediately; in fact, a change seemed to have come over the Rockaway; it gave up wobbling, the wheels ran steadier, the springs became stronger, and its general debility disappeared. It was altogether a changed vehicle. I heard no more complaints from Patrick, and all danger in using it seemed to have disappeared, for he took five of his female acquaintances to church in it the very next Sunday morning. When we did get the new coach home it proved to be entirely too heavy, and Patrick was the loudest in declaring it was “no good at all, at all.” Of course, it could not have been that an honest village wheelwright would purposely have put my wagon out of order that he might sell me a new one, but such a sudden recovery of health on the part of a Rockaway was extraordinary and wonderful to the last degree.
Of course, when a man moves permanently into the country, he builds an addition to his house. Whyhe does so, neither he nor any one else can tell. He never does the like in town; no additional room is necessary, but he does it all the same. I was attacked with the same mania, of course. The only way of adding to my house was by putting a second story on the main wing; there was no possible mode of extending either side, or erecting an adjoining building, or doing any thing whatever except moving a step nearer the heavens. This implied the removal of the roof. Now a roof is a very necessary thing; people who have been in the habit of living under one know little of the inconveniences of doing without it, even for a short time. It is ornamental—may have a pretty border, or edging, as our farmers say; but it is not only ornamental, it is extremely useful; and if any reader doubts this, let him remove the roof from his house, and try the effect of a change. The foundation is necessary, the sides are advantageous, but the roof is essential.
As fate would have it, my alterations were commenced in March, which is not altogether the best month for such things, in view of the fact, little appreciated by citizens, that that month is the commencement of the rainy season. So the tin was rolled up and taken off, the rafters were pulled down, the sides of the additional story were completed—and then it rained. I had prepared as well as I could to meet this contingency, being the possessor of a large amount of canvas, which once constituted the racing sails of a yacht that I owned in my younger days, and I had spread this over the yawning gulf as well as I could. But it did not answer; perhaps there was not peak enough, or the duck was worn thin by age; certain it was that it leaked, and leaked badly, not in mere drops, but in rivulets, that first covered the upper floor, and then worked their way down through the lower ceilings, and dripped on the furniture, and discolored the walls, and loosened the plaster.
Moreover, the rain always came at the worst times and in the most disagreeable ways. I would go calmly to bed, leaving every thing apparently serene, not a cloud in the sky, the stars shining brightly, and the wind due west, and be waked up at midnight by the beating of the storm, and the trickle of the water as it came down through one corner, its favorite spot, in my room. Then the wind would blow, and work under the canvas, and tug at the ends, until it succeeded in rolling it up, so that it could expose what was beneath.
And then, of course, at the precise moment when a dozen more days’ work would have made me
safe—when the windows only were wanting, or a few more boards would have shut out the destructive element—the carpenters and sash-makers concluded they would enjoy a little “strike”—preferring leisure to work, and needing a short rest from their labors. Many a time would I be roused from my comfortable bed, and be forced, with quite a scanty amount of clothing, to climb up the rickety, half-finished stairs at midnight, and get drenched through putting up boards or nailing down the canvas; for water,useful as it undoubtedly is for some purposes, can do so extensive and unexpected an amount of damage; it gets into such odd places, and produces such queer results. However, Patrick, true to his Irish nature, was so delighted with my example that he determined to follow it, and begged time enough to build himself a house. When my troubles were about over, I met him one day, and asked how his building was getting on?
“Thank yer honor,” he replied, joyfully, “I am doing finely; there was a frind, begorra, and true frind he was, and a carpenter at that, and he has built it all for nothing, because he was out of work. Sure and it’s an ilegant house.”
“Well, then, Patrick, I suppose you’ll soon be moving into it.”
“I would that, but for wan thing.”
“And what is that?” I inquired.
“It hasn’t any roof on it.”
“You don’t say so; why, that is quite important.”
“Thrue for you, yer honor, it is that; the flure and the sides is beautiful; it has two flures and a roof as purty as ever was.”
“Why, I thought you said it had no roof,” I responded, growing somewhat confused, as I often did over Patrick’s explanations.
“Oh no; the roof is all there, but it lakes, it does.”
“Still, if it does leak, the upper floor would catch that, and you might occupy the lower story, as I have been doing.”
“So I would, indade, but the flures have no boards on them; nothing at all, at all, but jest the bare bames. But I wouldn’t mind that meself, and me family would do well enough on the ground if it wasn’t for the lakes, and the bad saison it is at that.”
“You ought to find out where the leaks are, and stop them,” I replied.
“Sure, and it lakes all over.”
“Now, Patrick,” I remonstrated, “how can it do that? No roof was ever made that leaked all over; the thing can’t be.”
“Well, yer honor knows best; but when a roof hasn’t any shingles on, it lakes purty bad.”
“Patrick,” I said, pausing and looking at him sternly, “what on earth do you mean by saying one minute that you have a roof, and the next that you have none?”
“Well, yer honor knows the boards for the roof is all there, and put up beautiful, but I hadn’t any shingles, more’s the pity, and me paying rint all the time, and me frind with nothing to do until he gets somework, and no telling the day when he may do that. And I thought perhaps yer honor will give me the loan of some shingles, and keep the house yerself until I could work it out. The windies ain’t much matter, and boards will do very well, but sure a house is good for nothing intirely unless it has a roof on it.”
I coincided fully in Patrick’s views; there was a bond of brotherhood in suffering between us; and although I did not keep his house for him, he had his shingles. And so he was fairly housed, and my extra story being completed, and the garden having at last consented to grow, and the trees to furnish foliage and give yearly promise of fruit, and my vast experience having been carefully stored away for the use of others, and myself finally and peremptorily settled in the country, I think it is time that I closed this veracious and trustworthy account of “Five Acres more than Enough.”
IAM writing this supplementary chapter after the expiration of nearly fifteen years since the record of my farming experiences was commenced; and while I have nothing to take from the interesting statements which have been set forth in the previous pages, I have much to add to them. Everything has gone on as it began, with the same invariable pleasure, profit, and satisfaction. The field and the fields of my labor have alike been one long delight—from the soft yellow of the upturned surfaces when the plough had just prepared them for the seeds, through their period of emerald-green promise and their crowning glories of fruitful russet and gold, till they passed under the snow-white mantle of their wintry death. My success on “five acres” was so triumphant that I purchased a farm of twenty-five at Rockville Centre, and subsequently one of two hundred at Sayville, and to those have kept perpetually adding till they numberthree hundred and fifty, and bid fair never to be enough. My feet have trodden all the highways and by-ways of successful agriculture, and my efforts have done much to solve the great problem that the world has been groping over for four thousand years; for only when science shall teach just how much hydrogen, nitrogen, super-phosphate, hydrocephalus, tredecem radiatus, esox reticulatus, and cerebro-spinal meningitis make up the component parts of every stalk of corn, grain of wheat, or head of oats will the human race be redeemed from darkness and ignorance, and all men made rich and happy.
Patrick and I built hot-beds and cold-frames; and if the hot-beds did come out cold-frames, and the cold-frames occasionally endeavored to be hot-beds by burning up all the plants in them, we were sure to get one or the other almost every time. Moreover, we have had our triumphs as great as those of war. We have raised the mammoth squash, a miniature planet of orange loveliness, bursting with beauty and solid with succulence—so roomy, that Cinderella would have found no trouble in using it for her coach, or Peter Piper for a wife-protector. It was sent to the county fair, where it was much admired by my friends, and caused much envy inthe mind of Weeville, to judge from the disparaging remarks he indulged about the taste and value of squashes. It would have taken the prize were it not that another farmer had sent one a few pounds heavier, although far inferior in contour and general excellence of expression. Ours should have had a second prize, but that the chief official informed me that they never gave second prizes for squashes.
Of course there have been drawbacks, but what mattered it if the commonplaces did not come up to expectation, if the turnips and carrots failed and the grass dried up. Who could not spare the horse vegetables in the land of the pea, the Lima-bean, the asparagus?—where there was never too much heat or drought for the sweet corn, and where the luxuriant egg-plants would spread out their broad green hands to the generous sun in gratitude for his rays in summer, and would round out their purple globes in the cool days of September and October—that is, when the potato-bug did not eat them all up. Insects have become rather over-abundant. Indeed this might be said to be the bug age, in contrast with the stone age and the iron age and the golden age which have passed before. There is every known and unknown sortof insect on Long Island. The Colorado beetle paid his respects promptly, on his evolution, and has remained permanently; the borers bore our apple-trees; the curculio swarms in our plum-trees; moths and army-worms and tent-caterpillars and every other sort of creeping and stinging thing assist our labors and share our profits.
The poor broken-backed farmer has fallen upon the day of small things—the winged, creeping, crawling, and ever-devouring small things of six legs and more or less wings and unlimited stomach; those that delve in the ground and worm their way into roots, or climb up the branches and eat the leaves, or which strike the fruit and spot and blight it. He must poison the potato-beetle, he must burn the galleys and cities of the tent-builders, he must prod the borers with wires. By comparison with these the hum of the ever-present mosquito is but a humbug, and his bites flea-bites.
Following the directions of enthusiastic bug sportsmen I tried to inveigle the innocent moths into the candle of destruction. Patrick was directed, to place a lamp in the orchard and set it in a pan of water with kerosene oil on the surface. There was every reason to expect that the moths from their known weakness for light would haverushed to this death-trap by myriads. But Patrick soon gave the most discouraging accounts of bug behavior and insect artifice.
“Arrah that was no good at all at all,” he said in a disgusted tone. “They wouldn’t be after going widin a mile of it.”
“But, Patrick,” I replied reprovingly, for I was afraid he had not given the experiment a fair trial, “they must have been within a mile of it, as the orchard is not a quarter of a mile either way, and they seem to be as plenty there as ever.”
“And your honor may well say that. Plenty, is it? There is no end of them, and they keep growing on us every day.”
That was a personal way of stating the case which made my flesh creep, and sent itching sensations over my whole body. So I asked him hastily,
“Then why did you not try the lamp?”
“Try? And sure and I did that same. Och, but it burned beautifully, and all the country round could have seen their way to steal our fruit, only there wasn’t any fruit to steal. More’s the pity.”
“Well, what did you catch?” I asked impatiently.
“Catch, is it? Sure the first night I caught a mosquito and a house-fly, and the next night Icaught only a mosquito. I didn’t think it worth while to be wasting oil at that rate, for we would be a hundred years before we caught all the bugs in our orchard; and then, more be token, they would grow ten times as fast.”
Since the commencement of my horticultural operations I had had on my mind and in my heart a longing for a bed of mushrooms. The realization of this dream had been postponed in consequence of a certain obscurity in the directions contained in my authorities. Bridgeman was very enthusiastic and hopeful, but slightly incomprehensible. He said that the bed must be established in “a light cellar.” Now none of my houses had a light cellar—neither the first one imported from Nantucket, which might be expected to produce any imaginable eccentricity, nor that old-fashioned farm-house at Rockville Centre, nor the modern production of lath and plaster. It is true that when the first was in the formative state—had got as far as the cellar and no farther—in which condition it remained, as has been explained, that part of the construction was as light as could be wished; still I felt in my soul that the necessary cellar must be the cellar of a house, not a house that was all cellar. If Bridgeman had only said a light garret, I could haveaccommodated him. But all cellars I had ever entered were dark. Or if there had been some way of putting a cellar out of doors. I could have introduced the gas into the cellar, but was afraid to burn it or kerosene lest they might burn too much. I was all in the dark about the cellar, and doubted whether artificial aid if attainable would convert its inherent darkness into the light of Bridgeman’s intelligence.
He said if there was no light cellar we might use an old shed. But here, again, was a similar difficulty. We had no old shed; they were all new: besides, they were not much lighter than the cellar. Light was evidently necessary, and it was only after much thought that I hit upon a feasible plan. We had built a sort of greenhouse; it had not been used long, the plants not proving green enough to live in it, and it had been converted into a chicken-coop for the forcing of infant chickens. No better place could be selected, if light was wanted; for the sun poured down upon its glass roof and sides all day long, till the chickens got so over-heated under the forcing process that they spent most of their time, when they were not engaged pulling out each other’s feathers, standing and panting with their mouths open. Here it was that I determined toestablish the mushroom-bed, where it would have a sure chance to heat, and where it could have as much light as the lightest cellar Bridgeman had ever discovered.
When I subsequently mentioned my intentions to Patrick, he made incoherent remarks about “its being too hot intirely, and that the sun would burn them all up.” But he had not studied the habits of mushrooms and their demand for light; so we picked out “the droppings,” as we were ordered from day to day, and turned and flattened them, and laid layers of earth between layers of them, in the most approved manner. The middle of August arrived before we were through, and the place was so hot I fairly gasped as I worked in it; but when it was completed, I broke the cakes of mushroom spawn into pieces, and deposited them under a few inches of soil, and covering the whole with a deep mass of straw, awaited developments. It was some time before any results made their appearance; then there was a motion in the earth, which, at first I supposed was the activity of the seeds and the bursting forth of the fruitful fungi. Nothing of that sort came of it. Instead, the motion extended itself till it resembled a gentle movement of the entire bed. At this my suspicionswere aroused, and I proceeded quietly and cautiously to investigate. I lifted off the straw from one corner, and stirred the earth and dug down into it; then the truth came upon me. There was a motion—a motion through the entire conglomeration of earth and droppings; but it was not of the bursting fungi, nor even vegetable in its origin; it was entirely vermicular: the bed was one wriggling, moving, turning, twisting mass of worms. They might have been a new development of the worm family—a sort of mushroom worm produced by spontaneous generation; but I had not the heart to investigate them, under the knowledge that all our efforts to produce a bed of mushrooms were to end in the production of a crop of worms.
I said nothing to Patrick, but carried out the straw, and let in the chickens once more. They had got a fresh growth of feathers from running about the grounds, and had accumulated a healthy appetite, and the way they scratched and dug and dusted in that mushroom-bed showed the extent of our misdirected results, and assured me that if we ever wanted to raise chickens all we had to do was to establish a mushroom-bed on the most approved principles, and in a light and sunny exposure.
Hardly, however, had the painful admission of our failure been forced upon us, when a special Providence, as it might be called, or an agricultural equipoise, came to our assistance. I had laid out a portion of the garden for a plot of fall spinach, and told Patrick to give it what is politely termed a “good dressing”—a ball costume, or regular wedding outfit of manure. This had been planted, but gave no signs of coming to fruition; at least Patrick assured me that he had “put lashings of seeds into it,” although doubts began to arise whether he had not forgotten that important step in successful agriculture. The plants certainly did not show up, although we were now passing well into the autumn, and I was wondering how I could turn that “dressing” to account. One morning, as I was studying the problem, I noticed that there had been a movement in the soil, such as I had at first hoped from my mushroom-bed. Little mounds had erected themselves here and there, as though the tiniest of gnomes were at work, or the spinach had collected itself in spots for one tremendous and united effort to break through the stubborn soil. I instantly suspected more worms, and thought of turning the chickens from the hothouse into the garden, but before doing so resolved to investigate.To my equal surprise and delight I found, on uncovering one of these mounds, that they were the mud-homes of the precious fungi, and that the mushrooms which were vainly sought in the light of science, were the mound-builders, and had surreptitiously transferred themselves to the garden. There are many surprises in horticulture, and especially in mushroom propagation. Having produced a bed of vermicular life when I was in pursuit of fungi, a reward of fungi had equalized matters by usurping the place of a plot of spinach. I watched those succulent eccentricities with the attention they merited. I lifted the earth off their tender heads lest they should be pressed back into the ground. I gloated over their creamy consistency, so superior to the dull discoloration of the vapid and faded objects purchased in the markets. At last my well-earned triumph was to come, and Weeville was to be taught that, although I might not succeed precisely as I had planned, intelligence and study were sure to be crowned in the end. The weather was growing cooler, the season being early, and I felt that no time was to be lost.
I proceeded promptly to make a collection of the luscious edibles as soon as they were sufficiently matured and abundant, determined touse them as a surprise to my friends in the city, including Weeville, who was not to escape from my triumph now. There was no depending on the uncertain future, for the grounds of glory were in the basket. I telegraphed an invitation to a supper at the Manhattan Club, merely saying I would bring a dish from my farm that I thought would astonish my friends, and teach them that there was something in home-farming after all. It was a big basket and well filled, that there might be no stint, and weighed so heavily when packed that I put it on the piazza out of the sun till Patrick should bring up the horse. The horse was rather restive; horses always are restive till you get in, and seem to be in a terrible hurry, and there is no end to their anxiety to be under way till they are, when they generally become more moderate. Our horse was peculiarly unsteady on this occasion, and Patrick had all he could do to control him as I climbed over the wheels, for years of hard toil in the field have made me stiff in my limbs, and slow in climbing. So we started in some confusion and trepidation. It was only when the train had reached Jamaica that I found that I had forgotten all about my basket of mushrooms, and had left it calmly resting in the shadiest part of the piazza.
The little party went off very pleasantly at the club, and I left the guests mystified as to which special dish it was that had come from the farm, although Weeville in his blunt fashion blurted out that he believed “I had made another failure of it.”
That night there came a severe frost, and not only were all the mushrooms that had been picked shrivelled up, but those in the garden were killed. I kept that spot sacred next season, hoping that the treasure of the earth would again present itself: but the little genii never favored me thereafter; nothing but weeds grew the ensuing summer, and after that we converted it to the raising of corn and cucumbers. This was a disappointment, but I had the satisfaction of feeling that I had raised the finest mushrooms that ever were seen, and could raise them again, provided they took into their heads to appear as unexpectedly as in this remarkable instance. It is a permanent pleasure to dwell on the thought of how good they would have been, if only we had had a chance to try them, and had not forgotten that basket, and I never can pass that portion of the garden without a reawakening of such sentiments, and if any visitors happen to be with me taking occasion to point out to them my mushroom-bed.